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Audi News Blog

Audi Sport Boss Weighs in on DTM for America in 2013

No doubt the Grand Am's announcement of a full season DTM series as part of its Rolex series sportscar weekends (and maybe even a NASCAR weekend here or there) is of high interest to Audi enthusiasts. Audi has been a staple in the German touring series for years so fans might guess they could expect to see Audis as an integral part to that series. Of course, Audi Sport boss Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich rarely if ever projects further out than the next immediate season but commenting on the series announcement isn't exactly confirming Audi involvement so we dropped an inquiry to the offices of Audi Sport in Germany to see if he'd comment. Here is the reply.

It is good news that there will be a series for DTM cars in North America from 2013 onwards. Audi has supported the idea of this series because the U.S. is an important market for our brand. Audi has quite a history in U.S. motorsports by winning the famous Pikes Peak hill climb, the Trans Am Series, many races in IMSA-GTO, the SPEED GT Challenge and of course the American Le Mans Series. We would love to see our DTM cars racing in the U.S. in 2013 but it is far too early to say in which way this could happen. There might be privateer teams buying our cars or a factory-supported program  even if we would return to the American Le Mans Series because these are two completely different programs: We promote technology and our brand with our sports prototype program while we support the product  right now the A4  with the DTM. - Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich

So What's Our Take
We didn't expect Dr. Ullrich to confirm involvement so we weren't terribly surprised that he stopped short of doing so in his statement. Still, his take is most positive and, given the DTM tradition of fielding older cars by privateer teams, we suspect there's plenty of potential for Audis in the US DTM whether Audi Sport is there officially or not.

Most interesting is his last comment. Dr. Ullrich usually sticks to his philosophy of proving and promoting technology with the Le Mans program but the product support philosophy is an interesting one. Granted, it's not altogether new as Audi has been in the DTM series where profile rear-wheel drive V8 A4 racecars that share nothing really with their roadgoing counterparts have raced for years. Still, recognizing the alternative plan to race purely to promote product opens up possibilities.

We also note with great interest of his mention of that product currently being the A4. The statement either implies or at least acknowledges that Audi might consider changing to a different model in the future... perhaps a big coupe like the A4/S5 or maybe go the opposite way with the next-generation A3 sedan.

Comments

Key comment... "we promote technology..." See that's the hang-up w/all of this. Grand-Am does NOT promote technology.. acutally they go the other way. Moving to a stepped differential is a BIG thing for them possibly for next year w/the Prototurtles for example. So Audi is in a bit of bind w/this b/c they will effectively, possibly have to "dumb" their cars down to work within whatever is agreed upon for this DTM series will be here in the US. Grand-Am has always been a "cost effective" series vs the ALMS where technology is key.

They face the same problem w/the R8 b/c that thing is full of everything from TC to Abs, etc. Grand-Am doesn't embrace that. ALMS on the other hand blew their chance of creating that GT3 spec here w/the GTC class. Ironic that ILMC round in China that the ACO ran GT3 cars AND gave them a 30kg weight balast b/c they(GTC cars) were too close to the GT2's. 2013 is a long way off and this whole road is going to take a LOT of twists before then.

Key comment... "we promote technology..." See that's the hang-up w/all of this. Grand-Am does NOT promote technology.. acutally they go the other way. Moving to a stepped differential is a BIG thing for them possibly for next year w/the Prototurtles for example. So Audi is in a bit of bind w/this b/c they will effectively, possibly have to "dumb" their cars down to work within whatever is agreed upon for this DTM series will be here in the US. Grand-Am has always been a "cost effective" series vs the ALMS where technology is key.

They face the same problem w/the R8 b/c that thing is full of everything from TC to Abs, etc. Grand-Am doesn't embrace that. ALMS on the other hand blew their chance of creating that GT3 spec here w/the GTC class. Ironic that ILMC round in China that the ACO ran GT3 cars AND gave them a 30kg weight balast b/c they(GTC cars) were too close to the GT2's. 2013 is a long way off and this whole road is going to take a LOT of twists before then.

They promote technology via sportscar racing. In DTM they promote product. So for DTM this is not a concern, though most interesting to me because up until now I'd only ever really heard the "we promote technology" side of it.